With the advent of the Satellite TV age our eyes have got accustomed to seeing satellite dishes on roof tops, near windows in apartment buildings and even those compact dishes on some cars and camper vans. These are actually a kind of nuisance to the surrounding considering the fact that they spoil the beauty of a structure and not to mention the amount of dirt they collect over time and people don't even bother to clean them.
But with a new technology developed by a recent PhD graduate from The Netherlands University of Twente it is days over for the dish antenna. Marcel Van de Burgwal has designed a microchip that allows for a grid array of almost flat antennas to receive satellite signals. With the inspiration from the LOFAR project which uses an array of antennas located across the northeast Dutch countryside linked together to form a virtual radiotelescopy dish.
